Wednesday 27 July 2011

The Yanks & the PIIGS [updated]

You have to give it to American and European governments: their bumbling incompetence at paying their own way makes Bill English look like a competent manager of government finances.

Making Bill English appear competent while his government runs record deficits, living beyond its means to the tune of one-third of a billion dollars a week, is not an easy thing. Indeed, this is a measure of just how far Europeans and Americans have been living beyond their means.

The Greek debt crisis; the Portuguese/Irish/Italian/Spanish debt crisis; the American debt crisis … the sums involved are so enormous, the unpayable figures measured with so many zeroes, that our own serious problem seem dwarfed by comparison.

But only by comparison. A government needing to borrow a third-0f-a-billion dollars a week because it’s spending so much more than it brings in is the same problem in essence facing the Yanks and the PIIGS, and the cause is precisely the same: because for sixty years western economies have been built on a foundation of deficit spending, welfare/warfare payments and money printing. Which is to say, a policy foundation based on faking reality.

But, Keynes to the contrary, economic reality can only be faked for so long.

The responses to the reality check of economic crisis have instructive. When the world economy collapsed under the weight of too much counterfeit capital (the very essence of the phoney Keynesian expansionism followed by the mainstream for the past sixty years), the world’s governments thought they could fake things for a little longer by propping up all the bad positions with trillions of dollars borrowed from the world’s bond-buyers, and spat out straight from central banks’ printing press.

The result can be seen in the world’s headlines: rising unemployment; fears of both deflation and rampant inflation; and (not despite the efforts of governments to fix things, but because of them) never-ending, soul-destroying stagnation.

And the bill for the borrowing and printing (which is what the so-called Sovereign Debt Crisis represents) is now due. And it can’t be paid.

So we see that instead of fixing the problem, the world’s economic “managers” have instead made the problem worse. The World Economic Crisis has continued to eat out our substance, and to that crisis has been added the Sovereign Debt Crisis. One failure of mainstream political economy leading to another.

But reality can only be faked for so long. The economic bill must be paid by someone. And for the Yanks and the PIIGS, and for us, the bill is now coming due.

Frightening. And it should be.

That none of the above realise that, that they all still seem to think it’s business as usual, is a signal that things over the next few years are not going to be pretty.

Batten down the hatches.

UPDATE: Slightly revised for smoothness.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Still not sure why you think Ireland, Iceland, UK & US are worse off than NZ

NZ's position is simply camouflaged by a completely crazy "stronly" NZ dollar.

Calculate NZ's debt at say 1NZD=0.25GBP

Oh. Oops.

NZ. Worse than Greece.

Anonymous said...

strong. strong NZ.

every 300 billion we borrow now
is 1200 billion at a realistic exchange rate
and around 2000 billion including interest.

Thanks Bill.

Mort said...

That would be true Sinner if you measure NZ debt against the USD/ GBP founded in 1990-2000s. But their presses and bond machines have been working overtime compared to NZ's. Yes NZ is in the crapper, we are already enslaving the kids in primary school now to debts our parents are incurring. Blenglish will enslave those who are to be born in the 20s if he carries on this way.
Perhaps a more accurate measure our ability to repay the debt would be testing it with the inflation currency of gold.

Anonymous said...

Inflation proof currency that should be

Shane Pleasance said...

Great read!

Scary? Well...
Notwithstanding the contagion effect for the pending downgrade, my Libertarian brain is also keen to consider:
- potential collapse of the US$ as a benchmark currency (yes, I'm a goldbug)
- what happens when the 'peacekeeper' of the world realizes it can no longer afford to keep the crazies at bay in all the far flung fringes?
- effect on global currency values?
- China realizing the money US owes to it is worth-less (worthless?)
- Ordinary US citizens saying enough is enough - re-arrangement of states and civil unrest (you think Greece was bad...)
- whether the NZ government and reserve bank is able to implement its emergency planning in time http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/finstab/banking/4335146.pdf

the drunken watchman said...

don't get it -

government debt just equals deferred taxation, doesn't it?